Chapter Fifteen #2
“And when we finish the last intense coaster,” I say, circling every roller coaster with high intensity ratings, “we can take a break for a light lunch, and then we’ll move on to the less intense ones, like the Frozen Tundra.”
“Yes,” Marina says, pointing at me with her pen. She draws a square around those next, then puts a number beside each shape to note our order of operations.
We carry on like this, plotting our approach around the park based on the time of day, busy times, phases of the moon. This is exactly what we’ve done every time we’ve come here. A calculated, methodical plan of attack while our parents sigh in boredom.
“Itinerary look good?” Marina asks, holding up our annotated map, now inked with circles, squares, triangles, numbers, and asterisks.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at,” Tessa says.
Arun squints at the map for several long seconds, then shrugs. “I’ll go wherever you tell me to go.”
“It’s perfect,” I decide.
With a somber nod, Marina folds the map, and we head off toward our first roller coaster of the day.
***
The day passes in flashes of adrenaline-fueled joy.
There’s the moment the Avalanche finishes its slow, clicking climb to the top, when I look over my row and take in Marina’s wide-eyed anticipation and Tessa’s grin—and then the coaster plunges downward to the sound of Arun’s whoop, Randy’s frightened scream, and Jen’s laughter.
Or when we’re all clustered into our kitten-shaped vehicle on Dizzy Kittens, a new ride that tempted me even though it was clearly designed for five-year-olds, and Arun is the only one who isn’t turning the wheel in the center because he’s too busy crossing his arms and muttering that this wasn’t on the itinerary.
Our laughter when we spot our picture at the booth displaying the on-ride photos from Python’s Revenge and see that, amid our wide smiles and gaping mouths, Tessa is yawning, as though two-hundred-foot drops are a bore.
The warm feeling I get a moment later when, as Randy and Marina are joking about what else Tessa would probably yawn her way through—skydiving, bungee jumping, tightrope walking—I turn to my right and see that Jen has quietly crept up to the register to purchase the photo.
It makes me study the image for a little longer, seeing it in a new light—not an overpriced souvenir, but a memory to cherish.
The first and only photo of the six of us together, a perfect snapshot of this day that started with a presentation and pivoted into something unexpected.
And it means enough to Jen that she wants to buy it.
It’s the first time it occurs to me that we might be something more than a group of people with a shared office and a collective goal. The thought—that image—stays with me for the rest of the afternoon, through cheese fries and snow cones and our last scheduled ride of the day.
As four o’clock approaches, Randy checks his watch and says we should head back. Jen, Tessa, and Arun murmur in agreement, but I’m rooted to the spot. Leave the most magical place in the world? While it’s still daylight? Marina and I always stayed to see the fireworks show.
A flicker of hesitation passes over Marina, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing.
I take a breath of hope. “I’m gonna stay for the fireworks,” I announce. My words come out more certain than I am, like watching fireworks alone is something I do all the time. My eyes drift over to her, waiting for a response.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay that long,” Randy says. “You’d have to find your own way back.”
“That’s okay,” I say cheerily, even though my hopes are wilting with every passing second. Marina isn’t even looking at me. She’s staring somewhere off in the distance.
Randy turns to the rest of the group. “Everyone ready?”
“I’ll stay too,” Marina blurts out.
“O-okay,” Randy says, starting to sound like he’s getting tired of our abrupt announcements. “Have fun.” The group gives us parting waves before they turn for the exit, and then it’s just Marina and me left to stare awkwardly at each other while carousel music plays in the distance.
Questions fight through the daze in my head—why she decided to stay, what it means, what we’re going to do next since the fireworks don’t start for another five and a half hours. All that comes out is a disbelieving, “You’re staying?”
“Yeah,” Marina says, a small smile perking up the edge of her mouth. “It doesn’t feel right unless we stay for fireworks.”
That we makes my hopes skyrocket. “What do you wanna do until then?”
She quirks a brow. “Second itinerary?”
“Second itinerary,” I agree.
We fall right back into that sunshine-soaked magic we’ve been drinking in all afternoon.
We take a seat at a picnic table and pore over our creased, inked-up map, charting out new courses to fill the rest of the day.
Another round of rides ordered from highest to lowest intensity, a break for dinner at eight, and then we’ll acquire a peach cobbler funnel cake and pick out a spot on the pavilion to watch the fireworks show.
It’s a perfect plan. I don’t dare bring up our fight outside Nancy’s studio, or Ryser, or anything that could break this spell. As long as we’re here, retracing our old steps, there’s no need. I let those words stay unsaid, and I follow her to line up for the Avalanche.
***
There’s something about spending an entire day riding roller coasters that makes a fireworks show especially enchanting.
Marina and I sit on the Solar Summit’s grassy pavilion, on top of the overpriced towel we bought from the gift shop, and stare up at the colorful fireworks exploding in the night sky.
I use my plastic fork to break off a piece of the peach cobbler funnel cake sitting between us and pop it into my mouth in bliss.
The funnel cake is airy and crunchy, but it’s the caramel peach topping that makes it, bringing a fruity freshness with a drizzle of decadence.
“Somehow we never did figure out how to make caramel right,” Marina says, using her fork to scoop up some of the caramel pooled at the bottom of the plate.
I laugh, remembering our homemade caramel apple attempts from those years after Lettie retired. “Too thin the first time; glued to the pot the second time.”
“Did we try a different recipe after that? I vaguely remember you sending me one.”
I study the tines of my fork. I had sent her a recipe sometime in spring semester, something I came across on Pinterest that promised to be foolproof. But that was before the summer internship debacle, before the fight that left me standing in Juniper Park without a best friend.
Marina, clearly, hasn’t made the connection. She’s drinking from her novelty Solar Summit cup, tapping her foot in time to the jaunty organ music coming from the carousel. Reminding her about our fight would dredge all that history back up and ruin the carefree mood we’ve fallen into today.
But maybe this is the best time to bring it up.
Our day of coaster-riding is behind us, that laughter and lightness cemented in amber.
Here, in the dark, where we’re looking at the sky instead of each other, might be the most opportune moment to talk about our friendship and hopefully open the door to becoming friends again.
With a bravery bolstered by funnel cake, lemonade, and fireworks, I venture, “I sent a recipe, but we never made it. That was the year we stopped talking.” I keep my eyes on the fireworks when I say this.
Marina doesn’t speak for a moment. Then, in a voice that’s quiet and small, she asks, “What happened? How’d we go from best friends to…” She doesn’t complete the thought.
I watch a firework burst into blue sparkles. I can’t look at her as I say, “You didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
“What?” I can feel Marina’s eyes on me. “You didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
I lower my gaze to face her. Her brow is wrinkled, eyes searching. She doesn’t look mad. Just confused. “You said, ‘I’m done,’ and left me standing there by the cotton candy booth,” I remind her.
“Yes, because you ditched me at the accounting office for an entire summer. We had all those plans, and you just…left.” The hurt in her voice is raw and pronounced, like she’s recalling something that happened just yesterday.
A pang of guilt stabs at me. “I wasn’t trying to ditch you; I just… Being in that office made me feel like I was suffocating. And then I got the call from Ryser offering me their internship, and it felt like the only way to escape. I was escaping the internship . Not you.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me when you were back in Greenstead at the end of the summer?”
My heart thuds harder. “What do you mean?”
I returned to Greenstead to visit my dad for the two weeks between the end of my internship and the start of the next semester, but I never texted her to let her know I was back in town.
I lay low, hanging around the house, watching TV with my dad, doing puzzles, and hiding from Marina.
I kept seeing her disappointed face in my head from that moment when I told her I was leaving to intern at Ryser.
I didn’t have the nerve to face her. Though I’m not sure how she could have known.
“I saw you,” Marina says. “I was at Food Lion, and I saw you and your dad getting groceries. You came home, and you didn’t even want to see me.”
An ache grips me at the image of Marina standing in Food Lion, watching my dad and me check peaches for ripeness, and feeling betrayed.
“I did ,” I insist. “But I knew I’d disappointed you, and I–I couldn’t face it.”
“Because I’m self-righteous and no one wants to be my friend,” she murmurs.
“ No. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I shouldn’t have called you selfish.”
A low laugh leaves me. I didn’t realize until now how badly I wanted this, for her to take that word back, tell me I’m not an awful person. But now that she’s finally done it, it doesn’t feel like it could possibly be true.
“I am, though,” I admit.